Tuesday, June 14, 2005

arguing with song lyrics

man, I must be a little too sleep deprived with the teething.  I just got into an argument with the song "The Rose" (yes, the one sung by Bette Midler, I sang and signed it in 2nd grade or so and the darn thing has never left my head).  The last part of the song bugs me... "when the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long, and you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong, just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows lies the -->SEED<-- that with the sun's love in the spring becomes the rose".

Funny thing, the majority of consumer roses grown in this country are grown from cuttings, not seeds.  Yes, roses have seeds and yes, plants can be grown from them, but that again brings up another problem... a young perenial bush like a rose bush is unlikely to produce much in the way of flowers in it's first several years, much less in the SPRING right after a bitter winter.  Heck, the seeds take 3 months to germinate and are a real pain to get to do so.  If it was a repeat blooming rose, it MIGHT bloom after 2 additional months (which gets us into... oh... around July... definately no longer SPRING), if it's a once-blooming variety, it'll take a few YEARS.  (information from gardenweb.com's faq section - http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/rosespro/ ). 

OK, so the songwriter didn't have access to the internet (considering I was singing the song in elementary school and I'm 28 years old)... still... Take a look around your average nursery.. how often are they selling rose SEEDS?!? 

Guess it just wouldn't have been as moving a song if after the bitter winter the sun's love grew a frickin' daisy, eh?

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